Men Contemplating Grand Public Apologies, Read This

It’s October 2017, and men can no longer pretend they don’t see sexism. The ongoing torrent of sexual assault and abuse allegations against high-profile men, sparked by the New York Times’ bombshell investigation into Harvey Weinstein, shows no signs of slowing. With each fresh allegation, more and more women have been prompted to share their own stories, detailing everything from suspiciously gendered dismissals to physical assault. The circle widens, and eventually, men find themselves and their friends entangled in the structures of misogyny and suppression that caused all this pain.

What to do?

If you’re a reasonably nice guy, you may well assume the answer is to publicly apologize. Except, you, reasonably nice guy preparing to demonstrate the depths of your compassion by publicly apologizing on behalf of all men, everywhere, are probably wrong. Apologies are good things — and men don’t give enough of them, as we’ve covered. But while there is a real problem with the fact that men are less likely to admit fault (or believe themselves capable of it) than women are, there’s a difference between a sincere admission of guilt and a public demonstration of what a good dude you are. The one is intended to correct a wrong. The other amounts to throwing a parade for your own newfound wokeness.

Apologies are not a conclusion. They’re the first step in an accountability process. At best, they demonstrate remorse and give a wounded person the ability to tell you what she needs. Turning that into a performance of your own “not like other guys”-itude defeats the purpose. We’ve seen a wave of instructive male apologies over the past few weeks. The apologies from harassers themselves — in which they at once “deeply regret” their behavior and claim the allegations against them are untrue, or blame their every personal failing on having lived through the 1960s — are too obviously self-serving to be worth our attention. More frustrating are the apologies from the "decent men," who are clearly trying to be part of the solution, but who can’t seem to help making everything about themselves.

Anthony Bourdain entered the sexual-harassment conversation by way of (admirably) defending his partner, Asia Argento, who was one of Weinstein’s most visible accusers. But last week, he was forced to reckon with a form of misogyny that bears his own imprint, after the allegations against restaurateur John Besh opened up a long-standing discussion around what he calls the “meathead culture” of restaurants. “Look, I never wanted to be part of bro culture,” Bourdain protested in a recent interview with Slate. “I was always embarrassed. If I ever found myself, and I mean going way back, with a group of guys and they started leering at women or making, ‘Hey, look at her. Nice rack,’ I was always, I was so uncomfortable. It just felt, it wasn’t an ethical thing; it was that I felt uncomfortable and ashamed to be a man and I felt that everybody involved in this equation was demeaned by the experience.” Still, Bourdain admits that he was one of the most visible of the “bad-boy” celebrity chefs who became famous in the 2000s, and that a certain amount of employee abuse was part of that package: “Look, there was a period in my life in the kitchen where I was an asshole. I was. I would do the classic, throw plates on the ground. If waiters or waitresses for that matter displeased me I would rail at the heavens, curse, scream.” Nice.

Yes, Bourdain has since been valiant in his current fight against rape culture, but sexism in the restaurant industry is not new. A 2012 report found that female restaurant workers file sexual harassment complaints with the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission (EEOC) five times as often as women in the rest of the workforce. A 2015 New York Timesop-ed by Jen Agg described the kind of behavior female chefs endure, including “[slapping] with tongs, snapping bras, relentless grabbing,” and being made to eat off the floor. Agg blamed a culture that normalized abuse and the worship of "brutal but allegedly brilliant men” in the business, like Marco Pierre White, Gordon Ramsay, and (though she doesn’t name him) Anthony Bourdain. The ideal chef, Agg wrote, is “aggressive, abusive, and above all male." In the Slate interview, Bourdain admits he fit the profile — maybe all he did was throw a few plates, but other men did worse, and they did it while emulating him. How is it possible that it took until 2017 for Bourdain himself to be aware of the problem?

Meanwhile, over at Deadspin, the news that ESPN has decided to drop the show Barstool Van Talk (in large part, because the originating blog, Barstool Sports, is notoriously vile) has prompted Drew Magary to write a kind of obit for his former, more rape-joke-tolerant self.

“One time I wrote a post called ‘In Defense of Female Objectification,’’’ Magary writes, somewhere in the middle of his litany of sins. He adds, “I also joined in the comments on a post that goofed on high school football player Holley Mangold (sister of former Jets center Nick) for her size and appearance. She was 16 at the time. And, of course, I wrote a post calling LeBron James a cocksucker. Three posts, actually. When GLAAD got angry about the first post, I remember going to my old boss and being like, ‘Why are they mad? Cocksucker just means asshole!’” And, uh, it goes on like this.

It feels cruel to judge; Magary is legitimately unburdening himself here, and he seems to mean well. Still, by the time he reaches his apparent point — “[You] can be a red-blooded, beer-drinking American man who is also not a fuckhead” — one wishes we’d heard less about what he thinks of his old posts, and more about what, say, Holley Mangold thinks of them.

Men don’t have to apologize for sexism. Men have to end sexism.

I’m beginning to sound, even to myself, a little like a straw feminist from some MRA Reddit screed: First, I ask men to apologize, then I tell the ones who do to shut up or at least do it better. But what men don’t realize is that women have legitimate reasons to distrust the performative male mea culpa — not least because they hear it a lot, and often from men who are trying to get away with something.

When I threw the question of performative manpologies open on social media, one woman tweeted that “[once] a guy apologized for all men because I'd previously had shitty dates. This was not long after he got angry when I paid for my own food.” Another woman told me about a male acquaintance who “emailed me detailing a sex dream… he had about me.” When she didn’t respond, “he sent me a text saying he was going to kill himself if I didn't reply or something of that kind.” She cut him off, and he eventually sent her a 764-word apology by e-mail, explaining that he had come to realize his behavior was sexist. What he didn’t realize, in all his newfound enlightenment, was how disturbing it was for her to hear from him again. “I don't know if he's a better person,” she told me, “but I'm confused as to why he needs my approval or validation? Like why can't he just be a better person? Why does he have to let me know that he's better?” Which is to say: There are two types of apology. One of them is intended to begin reparations to the victim. The other is intended to absolve the person doing the apologizing. And, after someone has already hurt you, it is a heavy burden to find that you’re now responsible for validating them or boosting their self-esteem.

Men don’t have to apologize for sexism. Men have to end sexism — which may, sometimes, begin with apologizing to individual women for their offenses. The women who've been hurt deserve that. But that doesn't have to take place in public, and it doesn’t have to be a several-thousand-word self-excoriation; at a certain point, the Aria of the Formerly Unwoke Man is just a new way to fish for compliments. Real remorse includes the words “I’m sorry,” first, and second, time spent listening to the person you’ve harmed.

In point of fact, we could all spend more time listening to those harmed by sexism. They’re the people best equipped to tell us why it matters, what they need, and what could have been done to prevent or mitigate the harm they’ve experienced. That’s why it’s important that women are telling their stories now. That’s also why, rather than giving an endless statement on what their formerly sexist behavior means to them, men committed to being allies would do best to just hand over the mic.

Sady DoyleSady Doyle is the author of 'Trainwreck: The Women We Love to Hate, Mock, and Fear ...

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